Hi, I'm Donna Minkowitz.

I'm a writer who Mary Gaitskill celebrated as "original, energetic, witty, and meaty" and whose work science fiction author Terry Bisson called "rich and wild, dark and funny, as fearless as her legendary journalism and as scary as a fairy tale."

My publisher is whispering that I need to give you the preorder link for my book DONNAVILLE, which comes out soon:

indolentbooks.com/donnaville/

So what is this newsletter, Rough Tongue?

Well, as a journalist and memoir writer I've focused on sensuality and emotion, two of my favorite things. Queer sex, rebellion, grapes that taste as complex as wine, whether lobster tastes like nipples, feeling the breeze on your skin, sadness, anger, rambunctious joy, connecting with other human beings emotionally, politically, artistically and sexually.

I've also focused on what sensuality and emotion have to do with politics: specifically capitalism, this gross thing we all live under that strangles our creativity, attacks our health, adulterates our pleasures, and chokes our tenderness.

In the 2010s, I was the inaugural food and restaurant critic for Gay City News, New York's LGBTQ paper, bringing a radical, lyrical, and queer perspective to food writing. My class-inflected food writing there was praised by the late great Molly O'Neill among others.

For over 30 years, I've also written for the Village Voice, The Nation, the New York Times, the Advocate, Salon, Slate, and New York magazine. I won a GLAAD Media Award for my coverage of antigay violence, and a Lambda Literary Award and other honors for my books on the Christian right and my fucked-up family.

Now, in Rough Tongue, I intend to write about relationships, fine funky food, sex, class, pleasure, and family.

Join the crew

All my pieces are free for now, but if you sign up for a paid subscription, you'll support my work and keep natural peanut butter in my fridge, dark-roast coffee in my cup, and my computer humming!

I welcome your comments, questions, and feelings! These pieces are written with love, and that is the spirit with which I'm sending them to you.

You can find more of my writing and much more about me here:
donnaminkowitz.com